After circling a southern Russian airport for more than two hours because of high ground-level winds and poor visibility, a passenger jet from the United Arab Emirates crashed during a landing attempt, killing all 62 people aboard.
A flydubai Boeing 737 circled a southern Russian airport for more than two hours because of high ground-level winds and poor visibility, but then crashed during a second landing attempt, killing all 62 people aboard.
The flydubai Boeing 737 took off from Dubai and was scheduled to land at the Rostov-on-Don airport at 1:20 a.m. Saturday (5:20 p.m. CT Friday). The aircraft crashed at about 3:50 a.m.
The Rostov-on-Don airport has only one runway — Runway 4/22. Early analysis suggests that the aircraft had difficulty with crosswinds. David Soucie, CNN Safety Analyst, told CNN that the crosswind may have been too high, so the pilots waited and flew around the airport and waited for a better time while the winds subsided. If the pilot was landing in serious crosswinds, Soucie said the pilot would have had to take very serious maneuvers and land “crab into the wind” and at the very last minute go into a “bank into the wind” position. Soucie said the pilot only has so much to work with because as the wind is coming across the wing tip, it can only take so much before the landing gear hits the ground. Soucie speculated that was why the first landing attempt was aborted — because the pilot believed the landing maneuvers weren’t working.
On the second attempt to land, the aircraft was only about 600-800 feet from the end of the runway.
A Russian Aeroflot plane scheduled to land about the same time period tried to land three times, but then diverted to another airport.
According to wunderground.com 3/19/2016 data, winds at Rostov-Na-Donu, Russia were from the West-Southwest at about 25 mph with gusts to 38 mph at 1:30 a.m. MSK, and were worse at 4:00 a.m. MSK. Wind was observed west-southwest at 31 mph with gusts to 49 mph at 4:00 a.m. MSK about 10 minutes after the flyldubai Boeing 737 crashed.
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A Boeing passenger plane has crashed in Rostov-on-Don in southwestern Russia. 62 people have reportedly been on board of the crashed plane. All of them are presumed killed.
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